White House Says Trump Doesn’t Want A Government Shutdown

As Congress barrels toward a Friday night deadline to keep the federal government open, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted that President Donald Trump does not want a shutdown, despite the President’s past comments supporting one.

Sanders also made sure to place any blame for a potential shutdown on Democrats in Congress, who are skeptical of a funding deal that does not restore the protections from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

“The President certainly doesn’t want to shut down. If one happens, I think you only have one place to look and that’s to the Democrats, who are holding our military and our national security hostage by trying to push through other policies that have nothing to do with the budget,” Sanders said at the daily press briefing when asked how Trump would feel if the government shut down.

When a reporter jumped in to note that Trump said back in May that a shutdown would be good, Sanders said, “It’s never been a preference of this administration. It wasn’t then, it isn’t now. And again, if that does happen, the blame, the fault will all lie at one place because we’d like to see a budget deal.”